Where Education Is Experienced

Science Fair is Coming Soon!

K-12 students are in full swing developing this year's science fair projects. The local fair will be held Thursday, February 14th. Grades K, 1, & 2 are completing class projects, while grades 3 and up are competing as individuals or small groups.

The regional science fair in Liberal at Seward County Community College will be held Saturday, March 2nd for those who qualify.

The State Science and Engineering Fair is tentatively scheduled for Friday, March 29th in Wichita.

Aspire Highlights

Aspire’s after school program is continually offering new and exciting opportunities for your children. For February, a chance to learn a new language—sign language, is being offered on Wednesday’s and Thursday’s. Be sure to check your child’s calendar in the parent folder or online to plan the activities your child is interested in attending. Aspire is also changing up the Friday activities at the public library. Students in 2nd grade through 8th grade will have an opportunity to participate in video productions. Be sure to check this out! It’s also getting close to time to plan and prep for our school garden. We are hoping to be able to start some of our own seeds/plants for the garden this year. Stay tuned, we have some plans for adults in the works. Be sure to check your child’s parent folder and the website. Thanks for allowing us to work with your children.

National Mentoring Month

Did you know Summit Learning students will receive almost 26 million minutes of mentoring this school year? 1 in 3 young people grows up without a mentor outside of their family. With Summit Learning, all students have a mentor who knows them deeply.Learn more at http://bit.ly/MentorSL

Summit Informational Meeting for Parents

Interested in learning more about the progress of Summit Learning in our school over the course of the year? Join us on February 28th at 6:00 p.m. in the middle school learning lab for a look inside our process, goals, and data for this year.

Free ACT Testing for Juniors

Kansas now offers juniors the opportunity to take the ACT for free at their local school. Fowler will be offering this opportunity on Wednesday, February 20th at FHS. All arrangements have been handled by the school district. Students and parents do not need to take any action for this particular testing date.

Students are welcome to take the ACT additional times. Parents and students do have the responsibility to register for any additional testing sessions. Information can be found at www.act.org.

FAFSA Information for Seniors

Each year, the federal government provides more than $150 billion in financial aid (grants, work-study, and loans) for college or career school. To apply for this aid, you must complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®). Also, state governments and many colleges and career schools use your FAFSA information to award you their aid.

Did you know? Some schools won’t consider you for merit scholarships (scholarships based on academic achievement or other talents or skills) until you’ve submitted a FAFSA, so complete one even if you think you won’t qualify for federal aid.

Relax! The FAFSA is designed to be simple to fill out. Tips throughout the application help you understand the questions. Most people finish filling out the FAFSA in less than half an hour!

The FAFSA process is quicker and easier when you have a username and password called an FSA ID. (If your parent is providing information on your FAFSA, he or she will need his or her own FSA ID as well.) Learn more about the FSA ID and how to create yours at StudentAid.gov/fsaid.

Gather This Information

The FAFSA asks questions about you and your finances, so have this information handy:

Social Security number; alien registration number; federal tax information or tax returns; records of untaxed income; cash, savings, and checking account balances; and investments other than the home in which you live.

After you submit your FAFSA, your information will be sent to the colleges and/or career schools you listed on the form. You’ll receive an e-mail within a few days, letting you know your FAFSA was processed. Your college or career school might request additional information from you. Make sure you respond by any deadlines.

Get free assistance and answers at fafsa.gov or 1-800-4-FED-AID (1-800-433-3243).

Federal Student AidAn Office of the U.S. Department of EducationProud Sponsor of the American Mind®StudentAid.gov

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

During February, students will learn Habit 5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Leaders listen to other people’s ideas and feelings first. They listen without interrupting, without correcting the person, and without telling them they are wrong, or arguing.

After listening carefully and with an open mind, a leader can see things from the other person’s viewpoint. Then leaders use words to share their ideas and feelings while the other person listens. Leaders are confident when sharing these ideas and feelings. They know everyone's feelings and ideas matter. The goal is for everyone to understand each other.

Perhaps the most important thing about Habit 5 is being sincere. A leader listens with a sincere desire to understand how the other person feels. Sincerity is what makes Habit 5 really work.

Rise & Read - A New Opportunity for Daily Reading

Students have been working very hard to meet their Wildly Important Goal of reading 20 minutes at least 4 days per week. Please help make sure your child is contributing to our school goal. We are offering two opportunities at school to help students with this.

1. Rise & Read- Students read in the GS library from 7:25-7:45 a.m.

2. Aspire 4 Higher- Students read during the after school program from 4:00-5:30 p.m.

Project Based Learning / STEM

The elementary PBL group recently completed a challenge to program a robot to travel around the desks in the classroom. Students learned how to code the robot, applied various math skills to determine distance and turns, and used trial and error to determine what adjustments needed to be made in their programming to complete the challenge. All students have access to our school robots, named Dash, Dot, and Cue, in the STEM Lab. Students will be demonstrating what their robots can do at our Night of the Arts & Sciences in March.

Count Your Kid In Clinic

Arrowhead West Infant-Toddler Services & SKACD #613 are offering a "Count Your Kid In" Developmental Screening Clinic for children from birth to 5 years of age. Your child's hearing, vision, and overall development (self-help, thinking, social & communication skills, and muscle development) will be screened by trained professionals.

Scholar's Bowl All-League

Oscar Teran, Sophomore, was selected for the SPIAA All-League Scholar's Bowl Team during the league meet in January. Oscar is the team captain for the high school scholar's bowl team, and was nominated because of his strong work ethic, his contribution to the team, and his positive attitude. Congratulations Oscar on this achievement.

SPIAA League Cheer Performance

Our Recent Experiences

Fine Dining

19 students completed the principal's challenge by reading for 20 minutes per day at least 10 times over Christmas break. These students were invited to join Mrs. McDowell for fine dining. The group enjoyed elegant background music, glass dishes, fancy decorations, and lemonade and brownies. Thanks to all of the teachers who served as our waitresses!

Boot Hill Museum Tour

On January 16, 2019 the 5th and 2nd grades traveled back in time by taking a trip to Boot Hill in Dodge City, Kansas. We saw an exhibit about buffaloes and the students really enjoyed it. The classes enjoyed the old time clothing exhibit, the General Store with the rag dolls, the doctor and barber, and the Boot Hill jail and cemetery. The highlight was visiting the Long Branch Saloon. Students were allowed to sing on stage and drink a sarsaparilla. It was a very fun trip.

Project Week

Middle school students interviewed Mr. Trober about chicken farming as part of December's Project Week.

Jr/Sr PBL Class

As one of her self-created project based learning experiences, Tabitha Dawson is creating a video of the seniors to be presented at their graduation. Within this assignment, Tabitha is learning to plan and record interviews and use video editing software to create a final product.

Fowler Debate Goes to State

by Savannah Bollinger

Fowler High School began offering a debate class this year and two of those students have been successful on their path to excellence. Jahim Ross and Avery Bollinger attended the Sunflower State Novice Invitational on January 4th and 5th at Wichita East High School. Avery and Jahim went undefeated (14-0) in the novice division and 3-2 in the varsity division during the regular season that qualified them for State.

“What did you have to do to prepare for state debate?” I asked Jahim and Avery.

“Well,” Avery started, “We had to prepare to go against varsity teams because our division is smaller and has more novice teams. We knew it would be difficult going against varsity-level teams.”

“I basically gathered a lot of evidence against the resolution and worked hard on it.” Jahim summarized.

“Can you explain what happens in debate? What is the basic idea of it?”

“It is where one team--called the affirmative--has a plan that is in line with the resolution for the year and this year it is on immigration. The affirmative team’s job is to try to prove to the judge why their plan will work. The negative team’s job is to prove why the affirmative team’s plan won't work and try to prove to the judge that it isn't in line with the resolution or prove that there are too many disadvantages to the other team's plan. It is very intense. It lasts about an hour and a half to two hours and the entire time you have to be fully engaged and aware of everything the other team is saying because if not, you will lose for not having every little aspect you need. It’s also stressful because you don’t know what will happen before that round starts,” Avery replied.

“What was the hardest part of debate for you?” I questioned.

“The whole point of debate is to convince the judge that you have done every technical thing that you need to do and that you have a good plan or the other team has a bad one,” Avery explained. “Each judge knows different things or has different personal preferences in debate so it is difficult to be able to win without knowing them because the same thing will not work on two different judges.”

“For me, the hardest part was finding a partner that moves with your style of debating and actually cares about it the same way you do,” Jahim said.

“What was the most nerve-racking moment when you were at state?” I asked Jahim.

He sighed and replied, “Definitely right before the debate when we were sitting outside the room waiting for the judge to come in. The suspense in the air was crazy.”

“If you could do it again what would you change?”

Jahim thought for a second and said, “I would have worked more on our debate and more in class.”

“Was this a good learning experience? Do you feel like it benefited you?”

“Yeah, it for sure did. I had to find out the hard way, unfortunately, that debate in southwest Kansas is different from the state division.”

Avery and Jahim have worked extremely hard this season to get to State. They are both exemplary students. They have agreed that it was a good experience and they will continue to do debate in the fall and hopefully make it to State again.

Note: This article was written by Savannah as part of her PBL Lab / Internship. Savannah enjoys writing and is completing her internship by writing articles for the Meade County News.

Teacher Collaboration

Elementary and secondary teachers spent time developing goals and strategies for the KESA school accreditation process. Fowler's goal areas are Relevance and Relationships.

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